Five things
by Tale-of-winter
Summary: Five things that Belle took from elsewhere in the house to decorate her room


_1. A painting from the upstairs hallway_

He has so many things that there's not even enough space to store everything in the house. She finds the painting sitting on the floor, leaned against the wall.

It appears that he never even bothered to hang the painting. It portrays a rose garden in full bloom. The roses are flushing colors of red and white and pink. No two seem to match, even on the same bushes. The sun is setting on the garden and it appears singularly peaceful. Belle takes it into her room and hangs it above her headboard, hoping to dream of such a place.

_2. A hand mirror_

Mr. Gold had offered her the room when it became apparent to Belle that she couldn't sleep on Mary Margaret's couch forever. A string of embarrassing incidents for which no one was at fault finally pushed her out the door. She had mentioned something about finding an apartment to Mr. Gold, thinking that he could help her look, but he had offered her a room at his house. Emma and Mary Margaret had been concerned, but Belle accepted. She knew very well why he wanted her close.

Belle found the hand mirror while sifting through some of the things that had been in the room before she'd moved in. Every nook and cranny of his house was simply filled with things. She spent a week emptying out the room before it was ready for her to move in any furniture. The mirror had been in one of the boxes there. The body of the mirror was silver with the pattern of rose stems etched into the handle which bloomed into a rose on the back of the mirror.

_3. A book of Perrault stories_

She hordes most of the books in the house that she comes across. Mr. Gold isn't much of a reader and his tastes generally run toward guides for antique appraisal and law books. When she comes across a novel or any work of fiction, she sneaks it up into her room. Belle fills her bookcase with the books, dipping into them at her leisure. She has the whole of Storybrooke's library at her disposal, but somehow it is the books she finds at home that are the most pleasurable to read.

Her favorite of them all is a book of Perrault's stories she found hidden on top of an armoire. She was dusting the house. From the amount of dust on everything, it appeared that the house had never been dusted before. The book was very old. Belle couldn't date it, though the cover was leather. There was no makers mark or publishing date in the pages. There were notes in the margins that she couldn't decipher, though sometimes she thought she could.

She took it upstairs to her room though her French was very rusty. Belle hadn't used it since high school, when she'd been at the top of her class. Instead, she struggles through a story each night just before she goes to bed and when she has finished them all, she starts all over again.

_4. A tea set_

There was no rhyme or reason to why the tea set attracted her. It was white porcelain of the simple design and form. The pieces were scattered throughout the house. Belle found them piece by piece. A cup here, a saucer there. She set them all of one of the shelves of the bookcase in her room, though the china cabinet in the dining room that was packed full of things that didn't belong there. Belle liked them there, though. She liked the way they had obviously been loved and well used, though one of the tea cups was missing. She searches for it, but she can never find it.

_5. A ring_

It is an old piece of costume jewelry. She found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen while searching for batteries for her alarm clock. The ring was gold with white and yellow stones set in a cluster. Belle slipped it onto her finger, enjoying the way that it caught the light. She dropped the ring into her pocket and continued looking for the batteries. Belle kept the ring in the drawer in her nightstand. Every so often she would take it out and try it on. It was just the right size and she debated wearing it some time, but she had nothing that it went with.


End file.
